This invention relates to a timing signal generating apparatus which generates timing signals of various timing for many channels for testing semiconductor integrated circuits.
In testing a semiconductor integrated circuit, timing signals of variable delay times are required.
In a conventional timing signal generator of this kind each channel has a counter which is reset by a reference signal, and after being reset each counter starts counting clock signals which are commonly provided to all of the counters. Registers are also provided for storing the data corresponding to the periods from the reference signal to each of the various timing signals to be generated for all the channels. The counted data of each counter is compared by a comparator provided for each channel with the data stored in the register and when both data coincide with each other, a timing signal is generated at the output of the comparator.
In this conventional timing signal generator, since a counter, a register, and a comparator are required for each channel, the total number of components required increases as the number of channels increases, and thus it becomes high in cost and large in size.